Means Determine the End

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Means Determine the End

A story from Chinna Katha 2

In this story Karna, a Kshatriya youth, was a great warrior. Yet his lifelong goal was to learn the art and science of archery in order to defeat Arjuna in the game of archery. In order to accomplish this, Karna had to learn the art from a great sage named Parasurama. There was one problem with that. Parasurama would never accept a Kshatriya youth as his disciple. Since Karna was keen on learning the art of archery, he disguised himself as a Brahmin youth and went to Parasurama as a disciple. After many year of teaching, Parasurama grew fond towards Karna due to his great talent in the art of archery. One day, Parasurama was tired and so he lay on the lap of Karna for a small nap. Suddenly, a fierce bubble bee came out through Karna’s thigh. Blood was pouring out, but Karna did not move because he did not want to disturb his guru (teachers) sleep. After a few moments Parasurama woke up and was astonished. At the moment Parasurama knew that Karna was not a Brahmin because any Brahmin would not stand the sight of blood or pain. Karna told Parasurama that he was in fact a Kshatriya youth. Right then, Parasurama told Karna that he would not be able to use the knowledge about archery at the most critical point of his life.

There are many interesting point from this story. From the title, Means Determine the End, we can learn about how our actions can affect us in the future. In this case, Karna wanted to learn the art of archery in order to use it against Arjuna. However, due to lie he said to his guru, he was not able to use it at the most critical moment of his life. Thus his means of learning the art by lying to his guru, determined the end of him not being able to use the art when it is most needed. Another thing that we can learn from this, the love Karna had towards his guru. Even when Karna was in excruciating pain he did not want to even move an inch to wake up his guru. His passion towards Parasurama is shown through his actions.